Tag: live music

Roger Daltrey – Use It or Lose It Tour, Orillia

The “main” post for this is now located here: https://culturearchive.ca/roger-daltrey-use-it-or-lose-it-tour/

I wanted to start by explaining why I’m doing this.

First of all, it’s just to get off my ass. Because singers with a fat ass… You don’t want that.

Secondly, it’s to keep the vocal chords lubricated. But it’s not like a guitar—you can’t just add new strings.

Finally, I just want everybody to have a bloody good time!

— Roger Daltrey, 5 November 2009 (quote probably not exact, but you get the gist…)

Neurotic

I’ve given up trying to figure out exactly what it is about Roger Daltrey, but let’s just say, I was really looking forward to this concert. Wanting anything that I can’t 100% control always feel a bit dangerous to me, and my mind skittered over all the possible occurrences that could prevent me from attending (weather, illness, death, fire), until it seemed almost almost miraculous that I’d ever gotten myself to any concert anywhere.

In the weeks leading up, H1N1 became the main focus of my fretting, and the difficulty of accessing the vaccine led me to shielding myself (and Jean) with an elixer of hand sanitizer and vitamin D, hoping that would keep the virus at bay.

I’d also been following the tour virtually since it began in late October. The digital age has changed everything, hasn’t it? After each show there were not only written concert reports but lots of photos and quite a bit of video. And reports were generally rapturous, until… the Cleveland show.

Chicago, by all accounts, had been a huge triumph. Cleveland was the next day, 2 days before the Orillia concert (with a day of rest in between). And in Cleveland, his voice gave out. And he had to cut the show short.

This was so not what I was hoping to read before my show. And if I’d been operating on fairly low-level neurosis before, it now kicked into high gear. Having managed to keep both Jean and I free of not only flu but also colds and food poisoning and any other ailment that could possibly keep us bedridden, I was now gripped with the fear that laryngitis would force a cancellation of the Orillia show.

“You should have been sending Roger Daltrey the hand sanitizer and vitamin D,” Jean pointed out.

Getting there

The night before the concert, there was no cancellation notice on the Casinorama website, and then I decided, I didn’t want any more news. From anywhere. Since I had to work the first part of the day, and since I have to use the web to do my work, that was trickier than you might think, but I managed.

We got away at exactly the time we’d hoped to (3:00) and although it was a fairly wacky weather day, switching rapidly from sun to rain to hail to light snow and back, the drive went really well. At our check-in at the Day’s Inn, just down the road from the Casino, it was clear that the concert still wasn’t cancelled. It finally felt safe to just get giddy about the whole thing.

The venue

When I would mention this event to people, the reaction would either be, “Who’s Roger Daltrey?” (and it’s very difficult to resist the temptation to just say, “Yes, that’s right” to that comment), or the comment that it was a bit sad he was playing a Casino.

I’m not going to comment on that aspect, but this is was playing a Casino (versus the smaller music clubs he was otherwise performing at on this tour) meant:

  1. No Meet’n’Greet, first of all. At every venue on this tour (including some of the other casinos, actually), you had the option of buying very expensive tickets that gave you both good seats and a pre-concert meeting with Roger Daltrey. And from reading reports of these short encounters, he’s apparently very sweet, very generous about ignoring the “he will only sign one thing” rule, smells great, and is smaller (shorter, thinner) than you’d think.
  2. Cheaper ticket prices. I don’t know the economics of these things; I just know that Orillia was one of the cheapest stops on this tour.
  3. On-site amenities. Ten restaurants on site. While these may not be the best restaurants ever, some are pretty good, certainly better than anything on offer at a hockey arena. And an attached hotel, although because Roger Daltrey was staying there, room prices were jacked up to $450. And up. (Maybe they think rich people won’t bother him.)
  4. No tour merchandise. Normally I don’t give a flying flip about overpriced tour merchandise, but this time, I did want the damn T-shirt. Now I’ll have to order it online and pay shipping. Which is sort of irritating.
  5. No opening act. I don’t know if that’s a general rule at Casinos, or just because his opening act on this tour are apparently only 18-years-old, and therefore not allowed into an Ontario casino, but there was no opening act. As I hadn’t heard anything too incredibly wonderful about them, I wasn’t too sad about that.
  6. No teenagers. You have to be 19 to attend concerts at Casinorama. And since The Who still has a surprising number of teenage fans, it’s too bad their youthful presence and energy was absent.

It apparently wasn’t a sold out show, but let me tell you, it had to be pretty close to that. (The venue holds 5000.) That was a big crowd. Age skewing toward baby boomer, I’d say.

The announcement that photography was strictly forbidden was not enforced and was completely ignored by everyone.

Our seats

Our seats were excellent, at least in terms of sight lines. We were in the seventh row, very close to the center, so pretty much in line with the lead guitarist. The stage was raised enough that you could see over the heads of tall people. There were large screens on either of the stage, but we didn’t really need them. What was less excellent (per Jean) was that the seats weren’t the most comfortable ever, and they were packed pretty closely together.

But one other aspect of casino shows that I discovered is that those of us in the good seats are allowed to go stand in front of the stage, if we want. I hadn’t realized that we were allowed to do that, though, until I saw a bunch of other people doing it. “I want to go stand there,” I told Jean (who’d previously told me if I “rushed the stage”, he was leaving). “You go,” he said. “I’ll watch your stuff.”

So after the opening number (“Who Are You”), I did. And there I stayed. Right up close to Roger Daltrey.

The voice

So how was his voice, after all that? Well, not so hot, really. Pretty hoarse. Actually, I can let him tell you:

The thing is, I barely noticed that. I was actually sort of stunned, afterward, listening to the video Jean that had taken, to hear how hoarse he was actually was. It just didn’t sound that way to me at the time.

I can point out that it became clear pretty fast that standing right up close to the stage does not give the best auditory experience of the event. For example, I was still pretty much right front of the lead guitarist, most of the night, and where from my seat the guitar just blended in with everything else, from closer up it sometimes drowned out other instruments, like the harmonica.

I could certainly hear Daltrey sing, though. But it’s like I couldn’t really assess the quality of what I was hearing.

Or, quite possibly, I was just too excited to be seeing him up close to care what he sounded like.

At any rate, the voice also forced the show into being a little shorter than it usually is, with Jean and I both sort of stunned when they were wrapping it up. Which of course was a little disappointing, but if the worst you can say about a show is that you wished it had been longer, that’s pretty good.

The set list

I made no effort to retain exactly what was played in what order, but it certainly was mostly Who, with just a side order of Daltrey solo. And of course, some of the big hits were done: a very exciting “Who Are You” to start; great harmonies on “I Can See for Miles”; a very fun “Squeezebox,” albeit without the hip thrusting that apparently accompanied the “In and out” chorus back in the day; and a truly rousing “Baba O’Riley”, featuring full shirt opening and the night’s only incidence of microphone swinging.

As I knew would be the case, there was no “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (great song, but I’m actually kind of sick of it anyway), nothing from Tommy (the girl in front of me who kept piping up “Pinball Wizard” all night obviously didn’t get that memo), nothing from Quadrophenia. He explained that they’d tried to drop “Behind Blue Eyes” as well, but the protesting there was too great. So instead, they’d rearranged it, and presented that version. It reminded me of the way he’d done in it in his wonderful 1994 Daltrey Sings Townsend concerts, with the “When my fist clenches, crack it open” part rendered nearly a capella:

I was surprised to hear “My Generation,” but this was the “My Generation Blues” version (as featured on the Maximum R&B video), and it segued, through another song that I forget, into a fantastic version of “Young Man’s Blues”—giving one to ponder on how the once young and hungry Daltrey is now transformed into “the old man—who has all the money.” Nothing accidental about that song choice.

But another thing he wanted to do on this tour was bring out some of the more neglected songs in The Who’s canon—like “Pictures of Lily,” which had been dropped along with Entwistle’s vocal range; “Going Mobile”, sung by Simon Townsend (yep, Pete’s little brother, who does sound very much like Pete); and one of my personal favorites, “Tatoo.” They also indulged a request for “The Kids Are Alright,” despite Townsend commenting that it might have been better if the band had learned the song first, and some debate about what key it was actually in. Keeping in mind the wonky state of my brain and hearing that day, the song really sounded great to me.

From the solo oeuvre we got a couple of very fun numbers from his quite good Rocks in the Head album: “Walk on Water,” dedicated to President Obama (“Those Americans don’t know what they want, do they? First they love him, and now… I mean, give him a chance!”), and “Days of Light,” which he explained harkened back to his days as a sheetmetal worker, a pretty crap job that made the weekends all the sweeter: the “Days of Light.” And a couple numbers I didn’t know, but still enjoyed.

As the set list hasn’t exactly been fixed on this tour, I don’t really know what numbers normally performed were left out in the abbreviated set. I think “Naked Eye” has made a number of appearances, and we didn’t get that. Nor did “Boris the Spider,” which would have been cool to hear him do. And he has done the beautiful “Without Your Love” a few times, but I suspect that one would have been beyond him this night.

(YouTube of “Without Your Love” at New Jersey concert, 4 days later. He sounds great. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN_9lsa5xHY)

The band

Except for the afore-mentioned Simon Townsend, I don’t think anyone in his band is well-known. But they did do lovely vocal harmonies and quite a credible job of re-creating the Who sound. There was a drummer, a bass player, and a keyboard player. To my surprise, Townsend didn’t play lead guitar, but accoustic. As well as handling all the Pete vocal parts in the songs. The dude I was standing in front of most of the night, apparently recently named band musical director, ably handled the lead guitar parts.

It should be noted that Daltrey also played guitar on a lot of numbers, as well tambourine and harmonica. And ukelele.

The glitches reported on some earlier tour dates were not in evidence this night. No forgotten lyrics. There was only one request for monitor adjustment: “It sounds all horrible and basey. Or maybe that’s my voice.” (Someday I’ll have to find out just what a monitor is.) No complaints about excessive cool, drying air (it was hot in there). No giving up on songs partway through. He did seem to have to keep readjusting his earpiece; that’s about it.

The man

Let’s get the shallow stuff out of the way first: up close and in person, Roger Daltrey looks really damn good. He’s growing the hair out a bit (and there’s certainly still a lot of that), he seems to have dyed it blonde again, he’s tanned, he’s fit and muscular, his face still unremarkably unwrinkled. I’m about ready to drop the “for his age” qualifier from the “he looks really good” comment. (He’s 65.)

And, he seems to be having a great time on this tour. I have recordings of his 1985 and 1994 solo tours, and a lot of DVDs and recordings of Who tours over the years, and I have never heard him be as verbose on stage as he has been on this one. He was funny and charming and entertaining… yeah, kind of sexy.

In introducing “Tatoo”, for example, he explained that he wanted to do this song because it illustrated how much had changed, culturally, since the era in which it was written (1967). Back then, he said, only men got tatoos, and only a certain kind of man at that—a criminal sort, really, that he’d decided he didn’t want to be, and therefore remains untatooed to this day. (The song, by the way, is all about the singer and his brother deciding to get tatoos as a mark of their manhood.)

But now, Daltrey continued, it’s women who get all the tatoos. “And they get them in these places… That you couldn’t imagine you’d want a tatoo…”

Later, he talked about working with The Chieftains, and convincing them to do a Who song in return for his singing a couple of their songs. Their version of “Behind Blue Eyes” got picked up by radio and led to the album being a great success and them winning a Grammey.

“But I didn’t get a Grammy,” Daltrey complained. “I wanted one, too! By the time I finally get one, they’ll be called the Grannies.” (Now doesn’t the fact that The Who have never won a Grammy just make you think that there’s something terribly wrong with the Grammy’s?)

And after “Baba O’Riley,” he explained how he didn’t do encores. “We never did them in the Seventies,” he said. (And agreed that “smashing all your gear” was a good way to avoid them.) “But if we had, I could have used that 10 minutes to have some fun. But what good is 10 minutes to me now? That’s bloody useless. Now I need a whole evening! Sometimes two!”

My favorite part

Standing in the “pit” was generally a congenial experience, but there was one guy who kind of getting on my nerves. It was a little bit that he was just standing there instead of joining in on the singalongs and clapping, a little bit that his height occasionally interfered with my sightline, but it was mainly that as a people got tired of standing and moved back to their seats, he didn’t move over closer to Roger. Instead, he just left space there. And because he was beside me, that meant that I couldn’t move over closer to Roger.

Until finally… For the last three songs, he did get out of my way. Now I was more in between Roger and the lead guitarist instead of just in front of the guitarist.

Then Roger started in on his Johnny Cash medley (much to the delight of some dude behind me who’d been asking for “Johnny Cash” all evening, only to get weird looks from everyone around him). He explained that he was kind of worried about attempting these with his wonky voice, and that he might have to stop if it seemed too brutal. But he did want to pay tribute to this great singer.

And then he looked at me. I mean, right at me. And he smiled. And of course I just beamed back at him.

Then he said that if he got through it, the last number would be “Ring of Fire”, and he’d split the audience into men and women. And he’d have the women sing the chorus on their own, “because that’s really sexy.” And then the men would sing on their own. And finally we’d all sing along together.

So he did get through them (and sorry, I’m not enough of a Johnny Cash fan to know what songs he did), and he got to “Ring of Fire”, and he said, “Now all the women,” and he looked right at me again, through the whole chorus. And know what? It’s both intoxicating and intimidating to be singing about your “burning ring of fire going down down down and the flame getting higher” while Roger Daltrey is looking at you.

YouTube video of Roger’s Johnny Cash medley from Atlantic City. (I could only wish he’d been this sweaty and shirtless when I saw him…)

Finale

“Blue, Red and Grey” is this lovely little ballad on The Who’s underrated Who By Numbers album. Pete sings it, and Roger said he’d tried for years to get Pete to do this song in concert, but Pete refused, feeling he’d look like completely idiotic standing there with his ukelele.

Whereupon Roger, now alone on the stage, posed with his ukelele.

Even when in good voice, this one is challenge for Roger to sing—it’s in his upper range, it requires you to go from low to high notes in a beat. But I know he’s been performing it all tour and I’m delighted he attempted for us as well.

It was certainly a struggle for him. As his voice broke on the upper part of the second verse, he commented, “Makes it rather poignant, doesn’t it?” “You sound wonderful, Roger” somebody shouted, and as he did a fairly credible job on the last verse, the applause was very warm.

While we didn’t spend a lot of time talking to other people there—we aren’t very good at that—from what I overheard, it wasn’t just me who really enjoyed this concert. (Jean said it “wasn’t completely awful.” That’s actually pretty good, from Jean.)

So as to goals of this tour:

  • Fat ass avoidance—check!
  • Voice exercised—check! (I’ll trust this particular workout won’t have done any lasting damage.)
  • Having a bloody great time—check and check!

“He made me who I am. I owe him a lot and I love him.” — Pete Townsend on Roger Daltrey

(All photos and video by Jean.)

Open ear-ed

Open Ears is a Kitchener Festival of Music and Sound, the goal of which is hearing new things, or old things in new ways. This year’s theme is environments.

The KW Symphony is a major sponsor, and the first Open Ears event we attended was indeed a Symphony concert at Centre in the Square. Called “Sound Explorations,” the first half featured R. Murray Schafer’s “The Darkly Splendid Earth: The Lonely Traveller,” with concert master Stephen Sitarski walking to different parts of the stage to play his various moody solos. It ended with Benjamin Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” a very lively tour through every instrument in the symphony. And in between, we got John Cage’s 4’33”. That would be four minutes and thirty-three seconds of the various sections of the orchestra raising their instruments, yet none of them ever playing a note.

So, yeah, that was different. But not that different. And certainly not in a different environment.

So this weekend, we explored. We went out to downtown Kitchener for a 10:30 PM concert by a band called The Books, at a club called The Gig. The Books’ thing is sampling sound, and films, and writing songs around them, but on acoustic instruments. Their entire show had visuals, from home movies, old films, TV clips, whatever. The songs they come up with range from the quite lovely and touching to the completely confounding and dissonant. It’s a lot to take in, actually. So the hour or so they played was about right.

But though done with The Books, we weren’t done, not quite yet—even though it was now approaching midnight. Instead we went on to a Blue Dot event at The Tannery. We were even less sure what this was supposed to be (the brochure said an experiential metaphor. Gee, thanks, that’s helpful), or what The Tannery was, exactly.

Turns out that The Tannery is an old warehouse, converted to a nightclub kind of thing. The whole place was somewhat dimly lit. Blue light adorned one section, art slides were projected on one wall, a film loop of something like an Olympic gymnast was projected on another wall, and various physical art pieces were on display. A DJ played electronica. The crowd was Bohemian and, we were guessing, mostly in their 20s. So it was certainly an intriguing atmosphere. We went to the upper level to take it in.

About a half hour, maybe 45 minutes after we arrived, we were all ushered into another room for an art event. This turned out to be three guys—one of whom was hunky KW conductor Edwin Outwater—each standing on a podium thingie, each swinging a speaker, with a lights, from a rope, over their heads. Meanwhile, the artist adjusted the sound from this central console. At some points all the room lights went out, leaving only the illumination from the swinging speaker thingies, creating a kind of strobe effect.

It was pretty cool, actually. Though looked absolutely exhausting to participate in.

YouTube video of this performance—not from Kitchener, of course:

Then it was back to the big club room, as the music was to be playing all night.

Of course, we’re too old for that kind of thing, so we didn’t stay much longer, and therefore missed out on whatever other coolness ensued. But we certainly did experience new sounds in new environments.

Then this morning, CBC Radio gave me a new appreciation of disco music. But that’s a subject for another day.

Exceeding expectations

The concert was billed as “Alan Frew and Friends.” Alan Frew, if you don’t know, was lead singer of eighties band Glass Tiger—a band, I will freely admit, I was never (still aren’t) much of a fan of.

But having seen Mr. Frew perform twice before in the Jeans’n’Classics format of rock band + symphony, I have definitely become a fan of Alan Frew’s. The man is a really a dynamic performer—charismatic, funny, energetic, and talented. Great voice.

So my expectations actually weren’t that low for this concert. Still, they were considerably exceeded.

Alan himself was again very funny, very charming as he recounted some of his latest adventures, which include a new song to raise funds for breast cancer research plus a recent stop to perform for the troops in Afghanistan. He also acted as master of ceremonies in introducing all his friends (joking that their collective ages would almost add up to Gordon Lightfoot’s), who helped raise the show to something special.

First guests up were the two founding members of the Spoons, Sandy Horne and Gord Deppe, who both still looked and sounded really good on “Nova Heart” (though with four guitars on stage at this point, it wasn’t a number that particularly highlighted the symphony). They returned in the second half with “Romantic Traffic,” which reminded me that I liked it so much, I had to buy it!

Lorraine Segato of Parachute Club was another guest. She seemed perhaps a bit subdued on the iconic “Rise Up” in the first half (though expressing her appreciation that people still wanted to hear these old songs), but warmed up in the second. Commenting on Frew’s skills as raconteur, she decided to tell the story of how she came to write “Dancing at the Feet of the Moon.” This was a phrase spoken to her by a man in Mexico. Then, for the first and only time in her life, she dreamt the entire song, both lyrics and music. She awoke and had to scramble to get it all down.

The song itself sounded great with the symphonic accompaniment, and an a Capella part with singers Rique Frank and Katherine Rose joining Segato was particularly awesome. (I tried to buy this song too, but it doesn’t seem to be easily available.)

Amy Sky was another performer. Woman has a serious set of pipes. She brought herself to tears on the touching “I Will Take Care of You.” A planned duet with husband Marc Jordan had to become a solo, as Jordan was fighting off a chest cold and couldn’t hit all the notes. That didn’t stop him from performing a couple numbers on his own, though.

Jordan was the Frew’s only rival as funniest man of the night. Before his first song, he commented on the wonder of playing with a symphony, “all these real musicians. Me, I just got into music to get laid. And I’m not leaving until I do!”

In the second half, before performing Rod Stewart’s “Rhythm of My Heart” (which Jordan wrote), he talked about how it’s nice to be recognized, and to have people ask for his autograph because they like his writing. Until he realized they were mistaking him for Margaret Atwood (think glasses, curly black hair… Anyway). Maybe that’s a “you had to be there” kind of joke. But a lovely song.

The big discovery of the night, though, was one Stephan Moccio. Frew explained how they’d been introduced when Frew was looking for a song co-writer with serious piano chops. Moccio then played a solo piano piece called “October” that blew everyone away.

Frew afterward reported that Moccio’s Exposure album was the best-selling of its genre in Canadian music history.

In the second half, Moccio told the story of his adventures with one Céline Dion. He was a cocky (his words) music student at University of London when Dion came to perform there. Moccio met up with her manager/husband René Angelil and insisted that he had to meet Dion. That did get arranged, and Moccio pledged that he would one day write her a hit song. She was fairly dismissive, but he did manage to get photographic evidence of their meeting.

Flash-forward 10 years or so, and doesn’t Moccio get an opportunity to co-write a song for Céline Dion’s comeback album. And doesn’t it just go to number 1 and sell and sell. (That would be “A New Day Has Come.”) So he met up with the chanteuse again at one of the big award shows, and he tells the story of their first meeting, and pulls out the picture. To which a delighted Dion responded:

“Oh my God! We both look so much better now!”

The big hit was then performed, with Katherine Rose standing in for Dion. And Rose has a great voice, but no, she couldn’t quite match Dion’s power. Whether or not that’s a good thing is a matter of taste.

With all these performance changes (and yes, Frew also performed several of his solo and Glass Tiger numbers) and stories, the show ran long. Too long for an encore. But thing is, it didn’t feel long at all. It was over 2 1/2 hours, but seemed like it went by in a flash. That’s when you know you’re having fun.

All performers were available afterwards to meet fans, sign purchased products, etc. We all decided we wouldn’t mind getting Moccio’s CD. Good thing we didn’t dawdle on that, because we got the last three copies available! (Out of an original 60, apparently!) And, we got there just in time for him to sign them for us. And yes, he’s every bit as cute in person as he looks in photos.

So all in all, that was a great evening. Next up is Woodstock—Who, Hendrix, Joplin, Santana, The Band, Jefferson… So my expectations are fairly high. We’ll see if they can be exceeded.

Spectacular Spectacular

The snow had ended but the roads were still dicey as we headed out to the KW Symphony’s Yuletide Spectacular, so it was nice to see a fairly solid crowd was still in attendance. As was the news that the Grand Philharmonic Choir would live to sing another day after all.

This was a symphony concert rather light on the symphonic side of things, as they were joined by many guest performers of all types. The highlight of the first half was something I’d never seen or even heard of before, the Synergy Bell Choir. It’s just the coolest thing to see these young people (11 to 20) manipulate these bells—I wish they were on YouTube. But it sounds lovely too; we even bought their CD at intermission.

The Grand Philharmonic Choir did a very nice Gloria chorus in the first half, but my very favourite was the “Musicological Journey Through the 12 Days of Christmas”. Each day of this famously long carol is a sung in a different musical style, from Gregorian Chant to American Jazz, passing through Back, Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss, Stravinsky, Williams (John), and so on. Very cool! I searched iTunes for a version afterwards, but found I can get it only if I purchase the entire album by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir (I kid you not). Still pondering that one.

The Grand Philharmonic Children’s Choir was just deadly cute on their two numbers, “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel” and “Somewhere in my Memory” (from Home Alone). And sounded very sweet. And there were some solo singers as well, including identical twins Mercedes and Phoenix Ann-Horn (and yes, it was feeling a bit PBS-special at times, but delightful nonetheless).

Unfortunately, we frankly sitting too close to really appreciate the work of Carousel Dance, who danced a couple big numbers from The Nutcracker Suite, along with a more modern piece to Stille Nacht. It was hard not to just focus on one nearby dancer instead of trying to take in and appreciate the whole group dance effect.

And then there was the singing along, which we got to do to the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah (good thing they handed out lyric sheets, because it turns out the only lyric I knew was “Hallelujah”), “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”, and “O Come, All Ye Faithful”.

“Laughter may be the best medicine, but singing is good for the soul,” said conductor Brian Jackson. Indeed!

The whole gang—soloists, adult and child choir, bell choir, dancers, and—oh yeah—the KW Symphony—got together for the final sing-a-long number, the “Be careful what you wish for” per Mr. Jackson, “White Christmas”. And we even got candy canes at the end.

I am finally in the mood for Christmas.

Floyd, Lemony snicket, and a brass quintet

Just wanted to give an update on some of the more interesting events we’ve been to at Centre in the Square…

First up: Lemony Snicket – The Composer is Dead. Part of the KW Symphony’s Pops series, this sold-out performance featured the actual composer, Nathanial Stookey, who is not dead, but who did want to reflect on the fact that only dead composers seem to be celebrated. The first half of the concert featured a number of “spooky” pieces, including “Danse Macabre”, best known as the Alfred Hitchcock theme, then introduced Stookey. He and conductor Edwin Outwater gave a detailed explanation and preview of the major piece from the second half, a piece in which Stookey had assembled bits from multiple composers, all on “mortal” themes, into a coherent whole—without changing any of the original keys. If you know anything about reading music, you can understand how that’s astonishing. If you didn’t, Outwater and Stookey did a good job of explaining why you should be impressed.

The second half, which included this piece, was all narrated by “Lemony Snicket“, investigating the mysterious death of the composer. All members of the symphony were suspects and had to come up with alibis. The Concert Master was busy showing off. The violas were feeling sorry for themselves (because everyone forgets about them). The brass instruments were partying. The French horn players were busy with their croissant. You get the idea, but not how funny it actually all was, thanks to the talent of the narrator.

Next up: A little KW Symphony event we got invited to—not sure why—but that proved very enjoyable. It began with a tour of Centre in the Square, part of which we missed because we were late, but still caught enough of to be reminded how amazing the hall is, given its size and its acoustical integrity. We’d toured it before, but learned some new stuff this time, such as the reason that acoustics were paramount was the Raffi Armenian, KW Symphony Music Director, had final say. When costs overran, he wouldn’t compromise there. Instead, lobbies were shrunk, restaurants removed. We also caught that this was the second largest stage in North America, but have been wondering since if that’s really true (though it certainly is big). The official history page says only that it’s “one of the biggest” in North America.

We were then seated on this big stage, facing the “audience”, in much the same configuration the symphony is normally arranged in. The symphony’s brass quintet—two horns, a trombone, tube, and French horn—then proceeded to play a small concert for us, concluding with the Theme from the Simpson’s! They then answered some questions—yes, they have to buy their own instruments; what they do to protect their hearing; how a woman ended up a tuba player (the only way into the band); and so on. And there was also wine and cheese.

So all quite nice.

Finally, the Floyd. Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon was the Electric Thursdays concert I was most looking forward to this year, and it did not disappoint. The first half featured songs of the era, including Roxy Music’s “Avalon”, David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”, and Supertramp’s “Crime of the Century”, along with Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” and “Another Brick in the Wall”. The second half was all Dark Side of the Moon (except “Any Colour You Like”), uninterrupted. They had video accompaniment to this part that worked very well; it enhanced this music’s ability to really draw you in to a particular mindspace, even if you’re not stoned! (And the wine from dinner had pretty much worn off by now.) The photo montage of current and past war photos during “Us and Them” was particular affecting.